Gemma’s Journal #3 – Bump/Pon

when it comes to building the wall – that whole trick where you place a whole line of seventeen tiles on top of another row of seventeen tiles in one swift double pinky move.

So quick recap on what I’ve learnt so far:

A basic hand is four sets or runs, plus one pair.

An example of a hand worth points would be:

A set of dragons

A set of round wind

A set of seat wind

Jenn has taught me a new trick that is going to make it so much easier to obtain these sets of wind and dragon tiles!

Just a reminder of the table set up:

East is the always the dealer and play proceeds anti-clockwise from there. Which means that after East (dealer) South will then pull his tile and so on…

Now the trick which I’ve now learnt to help me create these sets of tiles is Bump (Pon in Japanese). For example I’m sitting there with this hand:

and one of the other players discards the White Dragon, I can steal this off him by interrupting play. I have to shout BUMP or PON then I can take that tile he discarded. Giving me my set of three dragons and my point!

To finish it I have to discard one of my own tiles and then display my set of three tiles to my right with the tile that I stole point towards the player that I took it from. Which means turned to its side and placed on the left of the set if I stole from the player on my left; placed on its side to the right if stolen from the player on my right; and in the middle on its side if stolen from the player opposite me.

Play then resumes anti-clockwise from the person who said Bump (and not from the person who discarded the tile).

I can see I might be using this trick quite a bit to be winning myself some hand points until I can learn some more hands.

Next week, I’m going to be taught Chow which sounds suspiciously similar to Bump but I’m sure I’m misleading myself!

In other news, I’m proving myself to be totally inept at pulling tiles from the wall without throwing them all over the place as you all promised! But when it comes to building the wall – that whole trick where you place a whole line of seventeen tiles on top of another row of seventeen tiles in one swift double pinky move. I’m not enjoying that. This is often what happens:

How do those central tiles turn themselves around like that?! It’s almost a special move in its own right! ARGH!